[Pidgin] #414: You dont the See Which Protocol

[Pidgin]

#414: You dont the See Which Protocol
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  Reporter:  dancle        |       Owner:  lschiere
      Type:  defect        |      Status:  closed  
  Priority:  minor         |   Milestone:          
 Component:  pidgin (gtk)  |     Version:  2.0     
Resolution:  wontfix       |    Keywords:          
   Pending:  0             |  
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Comment (by zak):

 Replying to [comment:66 elb]:
 > Replying to [comment:65 zak]:
 > > Ok, then the difference between our opinions is that I do think that
 people should be aware of the fact that they are using different
 protocols. On a simple layer users just type messages and see the online
 status of their friends and in most cases it works - no argument with
 that. But if someone wants to make specific actions like sending a file or
 writing offline messages (and there are more differences as I wrote
 before) the casual user might be confused why it works for some contacts
 and not for others just because they aren't aware of the different
 protocols anymore. So in an extreme case someone might even totally forget
 which protocols he or she is using. But then again you might say, that
 this is not important...is it?
 >
 > You are ignoring several responses on this thread (which is admittedly
 large and somewhat incoherent).  The point is, the fact that you have to
 know which buddy ''within a contact'' you need to initiate a file transfer
 to, is a bug -- Pidgin should say "oh, zak wants to start a file transfer
 to Ethan, and the IRC buddy he is currently using can't do that, but the
 second buddy on the contact, which is Jabber, can.  I'll use the jabber
 buddy."  Presto, you never had to think about protocol, it was just
 handled for you.  Ditto for offline messages.
 >
 > The bottom line is that the ''only'' good reason I see for you wanting
 to know the protocol of your buddy at communication time is just that, you
 wanting to know.  We believe that the freedom of not ''having'' to know
 trumps the desire to know, and think that you will come to understand this
 as we polish off those features which currently make it desirable to
 understand protocol-ness in the last few places.

 But most of casual users do not have multiple accounts, so Fred can
 rightclick on Bob and for some reason there is no option there for sending
 a file, but with Rita the option is there. Why could he revoke his
 authorization from his former fellow while this other terrible guy still
 knows his online-status?
 Of course you can say that this is not important and these are just
 details, but for me this ''is'' the reason why people should be aware of
 their protocols. And I frankly do not see the point, why it is so
 important to hide every little no-need-to-know-things from them.

 I think generally sometimes knowing a little bit more helps users to
 understand things when there occur problems or when they want to do
 something different.

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Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/414#comment:67>
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